DEER FRIEND – County entomologist Dave Simser holds a mock deer head in a field in Brewster in August 2007. The decoy helps attract deer to a station filled with corn where they scrape ticks off their heads as they reach for the food. Cape Cod Cooperative Extension program director Bill Clark offered support.

County’s tick man shares insights

David Simser, an entomologist with the county extension service, has spent the last decade of his more than 30-year career tracking ticks. He is now a few years away from retiring and determined to try one more experiment to knock down Lyme disease on the Cape.

“We are all at risk,” Simser said.

Simser, long brown hair drawn into a pony tail, told a small group gathered at the Harwich Community Center about the project he is committed to Jan. 24. Even though funding has been eliminated, he’ll get it done, he said.

Up on the screen behind him appeared a curious deer looking over a big, green, box-like object filled with corn. Deer, that often carry hundreds of ticks on their coats, have to stick their head through rollers coated with permethrin to get to the corn. The permethrin then kills the ticks.

Simser’s first-year numbers bode well. In seven sites across the Cape, pre-treatment numbers showed 72 nymphs, or teenage ticks which are responsible for about 75 percent of cases in humans. After treatment those numbers dropped to 33, he said. (In control areas, the numbers were 50.)

He expects the numbers in the treated areas to decrease further as the project continues over the next few years.

“I’m hoping the numbers will go way down,” he said.

Simser’s dream is to have the contraptions be successful and someday be as ubiquitous as those blue boxes that keep greenhead populations under control.

One of the reasons he is so fired up about the initial results is he has seen Lyme disease cases rise on the Cape. In 2002, the number of reported cases was 1,930; in 2007, it was 3,376. It is estimated there are 100 cases of Lyme disease per 100,000 people on the Cape. Compare that to the rate in the entire United States, which is five. (Although on Nantucket it’s much higher, 660.)

Simser said the number of people who are infected may not be up as sharply, as awareness may be increasing and more doctors may be diagnosing. Still, the disease is spreading and seems entrenched on the peninsula. And it’s serious.

Although there are three species of ticks on Cape - Lone Star, Dog and Deer - and all carry diseases, only the deer tick is responsible for spreading Lyme.

Simser has had Lyme a couple of times, which helps in his presentations as he can use slides of the tell-tale rash he got.

A bull’s eye rash is often associated with Lyme disease, but only occurs in about 40 percent of the cases, he said. The rash usually shows up immediately, but there are other warning signs as well. Often people feel like they have the flu; Simser advises seeing a doctor when you get the flu during the summer.

Simser told the group he was getting a blood test as he has been feeling “really lousy.” Although summer is the most dangerous time, people can get Lyme disease any time of year.

If untreated, the disease often progresses, and people can experience shooting joint pain, palsy, arthritis, heart problems and assorted other issues.

Simser also touched on “confusing and contentious” chronic Lyme, which lingers for years and which some doctors refuse to treat.

He expects Lyme disease cases to rise this year as his work shows that numbers jump in odd number years. So he advises people to be ever vigilant.

Simser’s presentation was sponsored by the Harwich Conservation Trust, one of the “Winter 2009” talks at the Harwich Community Center on Oak Street. Upcoming free talks, all at 2 p.m., include ones on herring and eels (Jan. 31), reptiles and amphibians (Feb. 7), and fisheries (Feb. 28). For information on nature walks and a live owl show, go to www.harwichconservationtrust.com.